2016

Porto/Post/Doc

Nov 26 - Dec 4, 2016

Reaching its third edition in 2016, Porto/Post/Doc once again proposes a film festival with an international dimension focused on the new forms of contemporary cinema, with special emphasis on documentary. There will be nine days and more than one hundred activities, divided between sessions, with films of various themes, debates, workshops, film classes and parties. We come back to refresh the cultural life of Porto.

In 2016, the centre of our programme is the sensory cinema. Concept that summons new digital technologies and innovative approaches to the world, the sensorial will be present in several films, in the Competition as in other programs. But the big focus will be on the retrospective that the festival dedicates to the Sensory Ethnography Lab of the University of Harvard, one of the most exciting documentaries labs of the last decade. Following this focus, the poetic films of the Czech filmmaker Jana Ševcíková, who has been investigating certain forgotten Eastern European communities, will be also screened. It will be the first time a retrospective of Jana Ševcíková is made in Portugal and will certainly be a captivating discovery. Also the Forum of the Real will be dedicated to this theme – the cinema and sensorial experience – with debates among academics, programmers, critics and filmmakers.

But this year, the festival will also have another important focus, through an integral retrospective of the Brazilian director Eryk Rocha, author of a relevant filmography that analyses contemporary Brazil through a poetic lens.

Of course, one of the most important programmes of Porto/Post/Doc is its Competition, composed of thirteen films produced in the last year. In this edition, this Competition proves that “our stories are real”, and so we assume the hybrid forms of documentary and fiction. The festival also has sections such as Transmission (with several films where the music is the protagonist; but also with parties and concerts), Cinefiesta (another selection of excellent Spanish documentaries), Cinema Falado (films related to Portuguese filmmakers or themes of Portuguese culture ), Working Class Heroes (another session of our in progress retrospective of the American filmmaker Lionel Rogosin), and Doc is the New Black (with a caustic portrait of John Casablancas, the inventor of the supermodel concept).

But this year, Porto/Post/Doc wants to go even further, especially in its educative service, by presenting an expanded edition of School Trip, with two essential novelties: the Mini – a program dedicated to the kids, with workshops and film screenings – and the School Competition – a selection of thirteen titles with films produced in Portuguese schools or by Portuguese students.

From November 26 to December 4, Porto/Post/Doc will animate downtown Porto with the best of contemporary cinema. We will showcase innovative films with unprecedented stories made by risk-taking filmmakers, showing how our world lives both in a convulsion of social conflicts and in the beauty of human relationships. We want to share this journey with you.